Fic: Written for Unsent Letters (2023)

Now, then; Unsent Letters opened earlier this week. My contribution this year was a Stargate/Indiana Jones fusion, thusly:

Studies in (Relatively) Contemporary Egyptology
Written for: Huntress79
Fandoms: Stargate SG-1, Indiana Jones movies
Rating: G
Category: gen
Warnings: none
Words: ~3200
Relationship: Daniel Jackson & Indiana Jones
Characters: Daniel Jackson, Cassandra Fraiser, Janet Fraiser, George Hammond, Indiana Jones
Additional Tags: epistolary, stealth crossover, multiple crossovers, Easter Eggs, footnotes

Egyptology is one of those academic disciplines in which everyone inevitably knows everyone else. Sometimes this is a good thing...and sometimes, it makes one's life inordinately complicated.

 This was, as the additional tags indicate, my excuse to stuff all of the Egyptian pulp adventure cross-references I could conjure up into one manuscript; I put a warning in the introductory notes that readers wanting to find the Easter eggs for themselves should skip the footnotes on the first pass. (If there were a tradition of author-guessing in Unsent Letters, sanguinity would certainly have pegged this one as mine from that warning alone, let alone the footnotes themselves.)

This particular set of footnotes, though, differs slightly from my usual style - most of the footnotes included links to in-universe sources for the cited persons or canons. I did that for two reasons: first, it seemed appropriate to the scholarly voice in which I was writing the footnotes, and second, some of the references are to material I couldn't be certain my gift recipient was familiar with. (That said, there's one case where one needs to follow all the way through to a footnote in the linked fic to get to the actual punchline.)

Fortunately, my recipient expressed sufficient enthusiasm in the response (the term "tacklehug" was used) that the effort appears to have been justified. ;-)

Next official deadline is Holmestice, although I've also been noodling at one of the multiple delinquent intoabar stories I've managed not to post over the last several rounds, and at a fic project that's been percolating for more than fifteen years (!) but is finally within shouting distance of actually being finished.

Misc: An edit & a WIP

One bit of housekeeping and one unmitigated bit of teasing:

The housekeeping:

I've edited the post regarding the gift story I received in the Unsent Letters exchange, mostly because the story link was borked but also to add proper author credit now that reveals are up.

The teasing:

Herewith a snippet of one of my current WIPs:

I should advise you,” the scientist said in a mild, apologetic voice, “that this is a secure area, and anyone attempting to enter secure areas here at Q-36 is subject to potential shrinking, rabbitizing, multiplication, spectrographic diffusion, gravitational flux…”

“…and explosive space modulation?” That was Zachary. I blinked. Dr. Honeydew stopped in mid-sentence and took off his glasses – which made me blink again, because although the face behind the glasses had appeared not to include eyes, the scientist’s face now sported a pair of small white marbles, evidently sewn onto the fabric of his head, through whose blue-gray markings he was clearly studying my companion.

“Before I answer that,” said Dr. Honeydew in an apologetic tone, “I’m afraid I need to ask who you are, why you’re here, and what sort of security clearances you have. The owners are very particular about those sorts of questions.”